NOTE:
This discussion stems from keith63 quoting scientists that are underwhelmed by the number of transitional fossils found in the record.
What matters most in science is not what prominant scientists think but rather what the evidence shows. What makes things even worse is that quotes from prominent scientists are ofen taken out of context or outdated.
So, to get to the evidence, the main contention was that creation theory predicts organisms to appear suddenly in the fossil record being that they were created without a common ancestor and subsequent evolution. Although there are admittedly many gaps in the fossil record, we still don't see current species or recent species intermingling with the earliest species (whales with trilobites for example). This is what we would expect if a catastrophic incident (Noah's flood) occured as a literal reading of the Bible would indicate. Instead we see a steady, progressive movement of organisms into the current taxonomy we see today. Some professor at WashU is not going to change this fact.
As to intelligent design, show me evidence of a supernatural diety creating physical changes in our universe and you would have an argument. So far, intelligent design is a god of the gaps theory, limited to what we have yet to explain fully. It relies on inferrence without evidence and incredulity based on undefined probabilities. Evolutionists are not scared of design theory, we just don't want unsupported theories to be treated as equals in science classrooms with theories based in evidence. As soon as you can physically test through methodological naturalism (the only method we have that has worked in science) the presence of a creator diety we can talk about equal treatment of the two theories.
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